Arts Agenda: Museum and college gallery highlights

Each week, ArtsATL delivers a critic’s short list of the shows, exhibitions, concerts and events we recommend for the coming weeks within one discipline or venue type in the kaleidoscope of Atlanta arts and culture. Every week, we’ll present a different art form.

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Through December 5

In Tricia Wright: The Naturalist, Wright’s works are a personal celebration and inquiry into her relationship with nature, the passing of time and the value of human touch. Created explicitly for the Don Russell Clayton Gallery, the large-scale installation Lady Bug by Jennifer Angus celebrates pioneering women in entomology — Madame Dragonfly, Moth Queen and the Termite Lady sound like superheroes of the DC comic book universe, but they are the pseudonyms of women entomologists Cynthia Longfield (1896-1991), Alice Balfour (1850-1936) and Margaret Collins (1922–1996). Both are on view at Kennesaw State University’s Zuckerman Museum through December 5.

Through December 7

Al Clayton Photography: Lost and Found presents a special look at life in Atlanta in the 1980s through the lens of famed photographer of the urban and rural South, Al Clayton (1934-2014). On view in Oglethorpe University Museum’s Skylight Gallery through December 7 are more than 35 black-and-white photographs and contact sheets celebrating ’80s club kids, drag performers and the LGBTQ community. Also on view is a special selection of Clayton’s own belongings, including cameras, loops and other photography equipment, providing a window into his artistic process. Included in the adjacent Hall Gallery is a selection of seven photographs from Clayton’s never-before-exhibited 1990s series Lost Things — carefully arranged tableaus composed of discarded items found around Atlanta creating intricate, richly colored photographs. On November 13, there will be a lecture with Jennie Clayton, daughter of the artist, and special surprise guests at 7 p.m.

Through December 12

Clark Atlanta University Art Museum’s fall exhibition season includes Ancestral Mirrors, a solo exhibition by acclaimed Atlanta-based artist Shanequa Gay, and Rediscovery, an exhibition of selections from the museum’s permanent collection, including works by Samella Sanders Lewis, Henri Linton, Radcliffe Bailey, John Rhoden and John Woodrow Wilson. See them both through December 12.

Through December 14

Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection, on view at Michael C. Carlos Museum through December 14, is curated by Emory doctoral student Margaret Nagawa. That fact alone is notable: It’s rare for a student curator to deliver a project of this ambition, impact and polish. The show presents more than two dozen contemporary African artists working across painting, photography, sculpture, ceramics and animation. 

Through December 21

On view at Atlanta Contemporary are Ten Moon by Jiha Moon and Shaping Identity, a group exhibition featuring Korean printmakers. Both shows continue through December 21.

Through January 30

Legacies in Paper is an exhibit celebrating the lifelong exploration of hand papermaking in the artworks of Nancy Cohen, Sara Garden Armstrong and Helen Hiebert, significant pioneers in developing paper as an artistic and sculptural medium. See it at Georgia Tech’s Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking through January 30.

Through February 8

At the High Museum of Art, Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements spotlights the work of Dutch fashion artists Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren. The duo’s unconventional work has explored the boundaries between haute couture and art, and you can see it through February 8.

Through March 1

The Savannah College of Art and Design will present several exhibitions and events this fall, including a show that explores the work of a fashion world legend in André Leon Talley: Style is Forever at SCAD FASH through March 1.

Through May 1

Repossessions, the inaugural exhibition in the CI&A’s Bank of America Gallery at the Spelman Museum, presents works by artists Chelle Barbour, Marcus Brown, Rodney Ewing, Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle (Olomidara Yaya), Curtis Patterson and, to be unveiled in the Spring of 2026, a new artwork from Shanequa Gay. Each of the artists transformed objects from enslavement and the Jim Crow era offered by white families working toward repair. The show will be on view through May 1.

November 8-January 10

Runaway Universe is an exhibition of recent paintings and works on paper by Corrine Colarusso at MOCA GA, on view from November 8 through January 10. From the shaggy landscape of the Okefenokee Swamp to her ordinary backyard, she has used landscape and observations of weather conditions to map cycles of the day and seasons as parallel worlds linked to our inner selves.

January 3-June 28

While living in Athens from 1987 to 2010, Beverly Buchanan produced art that honored everyday spaces and the people who inhabited them. Home, memory and belonging are central to her art. Shacks, Stories and Spirit: Beverly Buchanan’s Art of Home, opening January 3 and continuing through June 28, celebrates the Georgia Museum of Art’s growing collection of Buchanan’s work and its commitment to preserving her legacy. Beverly’s Athens, a concurrent exhibition at the Athenaeum (the Lamar Dodd School of Art’s downtown gallery space) opening on January 16, further explores Buchanan’s time in the city, providing other perspectives on her enduring legacy and artistic practice.